Rielle woke up bright and early and made her way to the east gate. She notices an orange-haired figure in the distance, dressed in light leather armor, and quickly jogs over to her.

“Did you wait long?” Rielle asks.

Erica sweeps her bangs to the side and smiles.

“I only just got here, myself,” Erica states.

“How long have you been waiting to use that?”

“Ah, you caught me,” Erica says. “In any case, let's get down to business. Today we’re going to be hunting down demons. Once we step through that gate, we’ll be on our own so let's stay focused.”

“Hm… Stay focused. That’s gonna be hard when you’re wearing those leather pants.” Rielle states

“I-I don’t know what you mean! I only wear these because they’re easy to move in.” Erica mutters.

“You’re still just as bad at lying.” Rielle chuckles.

The two of them were standing just before the gate, where two guards were posted. They walk over to the guards and show them the mission sheet, they take a look at Erica’s golden dog tags and let her through. As Rielle tries to get through they stop her, with their spears.

“With the difficulty of this mission, we can’t just allow someone who’s not registered with the Request Center.” He says.

“I can vouch for her strength. She’s stronger than me after all.” Erica states, placing her hands on her hips.

“Alright. Then as a test of her skill, if she can defeat us, we’ll let her pass.” The guard says as he takes up a stance.

Rielle smiles sinisterly.

“Ri, just make sure you hold back,” Erica states with a sigh.

The first guard ran toward her, swinging his polearm around with a wide motion, while the other guard snuck underneath the wide swings, targeting her legs with several thrusts of his spear. Rielle was rhythmically ducking under the wide swings while moving her feet in time with the stabs.

“I haven’t been this active in a while!” Rielle mutters.

“She’s toying with us!” The guard mutters.

He shifts his wide swings into a heavy downward slash, that Rielle dodges by moving to the side. His weapon collides with the cobblestone, while the spearman attacks from behind, missing his piercing blow by a hair.

“It’s my turn now,” Rielle says.

A black hole appears at her side, as she pulls out a long staff, made from ebonwood, from top to bottom a light blue cloth is wrapped around the shaft, and at the top is a snowflake-shaped silver. At the center of the snowflake was a cyan gem that glowed.

“A staff…?” The spearman questions.

She taps the staff against the ground, causing a trail of ice to cross the ground to the guards and instantly freeze them in a giant block of ice.

“That felt good!” Rielle exclaims.

Rubbing her face against her staff, she glows jubilantly. 

“I’ve missed you so much, Rodney!” Rielle says.

“Yup, I still hate the name of that stuff,” Erica says. “You should unfreeze them before they die.”

“Oh, right.” Rielle snaps her fingers, and the ice breaks into small fragments that fade into nothing.

“Holy…. Hell….” The spearman says while shivering.

“That was chilling.” He states.

Rielle pulls a blanket out of the black hole and tosses it over the guards.

“So, can I go on the field trip?” She asks.

Both the guards nod as they continue to shiver. Rielle walks past the guards and stands beside Erica.

“You didn’t have to show off that much,” Erica says.

“I was just elated to be battling again. I also wanted to see if I still had it.” Rielle says.

“Well, I guess it was a good warm-up for you.” Erica says, “Come on, I’ll lead the way.”

The area just outside of the gate was a flat plain that stretched for at least a mile, followed by a dense forest.

“Seems like you’ve been fighting the demons pretty often,” Rielle states.

“As a knight… Er… Former knight, I consider it my job to slay demons.” Erica says.

“I guess old habits die hard. You were one of the strongest knights of your time after all.” Rielle says.

Erica pokes the tip of her sword handle.

“Well, at first it was just to put food on the table; but then I realized how much good I could do, how many people I was saving and it turned into so much more,” Erica explains.

“Yeah, I remember you left while we were in the middle of lovemaking,” Rielle says with a smirk.

“T-That… I said I was sorry about that!” Erica says with her face as red as a beet. “Someone was being chased by a demon…”

“I know, I know. I’m just teasing you.” Rielle says.

“What about that time I was away for a while, and you got so pent up you were using the handle of my swo—” Erica begins.

“Alright! Fine. We’ve both done some crazy things in the past.” Rielle says 

“Some, more dangerous than others,” Erica smirks, while peering back at Rielle.

Rielle sighs.

“Anyway, it seems like we’ve been getting watched this whole time,” Rielle states.

“Yeah. Seems like they’re trying to size us up.” Erica says placing a hand on her waist. “Typical demon behavior.”

“Well, It’ll be nice to see how much you’ve grown,” Rielle says.

“Who knows?” Erica says.

Erica draws her sword and Rielle pulls out her staff. The sound of bushes and leaves begins to grow as they enter the forest. Blurs of darkness fly past moving behind anything they can find. Erica and Rielle stop moving as they hear sobbing coming from all around them. 

“One thing I’ve gotta admit is that these demons are a hell of a lot creepier than the ones we used to fight,” Rielle states.

“Yeah. They leave hell to escape the endless torture and are warped by the pain and suffering. As a result, they’re always crying. But don’t let that fool you. They’d rip a person to shreds if given the chance.” Erica says.

A demon walks out from behind a thick tree, standing before them upright on two legs. Much like others of its race, it had a tall, lanky build. Its body was blood red and sharp claws hung down from each of its fingers. Its face had white trapezoid-shaped eyes and a trail of black ran down from its eyes and traced the rest of its body reaching its feet. It emitted a low-pitch sob, that caused other demons around them to vacate their hiding places.

“There are more than I thought,” Erica says.

“Then let's see who can kill more then?” Rielle says as she points her staff to the demon before them.

“Fine by me!” Erica says. With just a single step, she launches forward causing a blast of wind to assault everything in the area. Erica twists her body as she slashes with the blade, performing a full spin and slicing through the demon. She lands behind it coming to a sliding stop as another demon appears behind her, claws raised. The demon begins slamming its claws into her, but Erica parries each blow with a twist of her blade, knicking off a bit of claws and then slicing straight through its arms and legs. Before finishing it, another demon attacks from beneath her. She jumps back to dodge its upward claws, which attempt to sandwich her like a beartrap. The same demon springs from the ground and starts spinning toward her with its blades. 

Meanwhile, Rielle is surrounded by demons. They simultaneously dive at her, while one sits in the back, gathering a peculiar black liquid in its mouth. Rielle traces a path with her staff, following the order of the demons surrounding her and creating a giant spear of ice before each demon in the path. The spears blast forward, impaling each of the demons in the stomach and pinning a few to a tree. The ice in their stomachs begins to expand, before exploding in a cloud of diamond dust and turning the demons to ice. 

A demon that snuck behind her jabs at her with its claws, but finds its hand freezing solid. The closer it gets to her, the stronger the freezing becomes, causing its entire arm to be trapped in ice. The demon from afar, fires off the black bubbling liquid in its mouth, and Rielle dodges to the side allowing the demon behind her to get struck by it. She watches the demon fall to the ground with a giant hole in its head. Rielle begins taking long hops through the forest, as the remaining demons chase after her.

Erica follows close behind the trailing pack, using trees as footing bound off of. The demons ahead of her were doing the same to keep pace with Rielle but one shoots the black liquid at Erica. By spinning her blade with one hand at high speed, she was able to completely slice it apart and defend against it. Erica watches the demon's rhythm as they hop through the forest. Rielle spots Erica and smirks. While mid-hop, Rielle raises her staff, calling forth a powerful gale of freezing air, which pushes each of the demons back, causing them to slam into each other, one after another. Erica’s eyes gleam as the demons are thrown in her direction, practically neatly tied up in a bow. She lands on the next tree and then kicks off with tremendous strength. The thick tree shatters almost completely in half as she does a front flip. Her sword glimmers with a golden aura for but a second but, disperses instead. Instead, a powerful downward swing of her sword bisects each of the demons and even leaves a deep cut in the soil beneath them. The remains of the demons explode into a giant mess of blackish-purple goop that covers the entire area.